Twelve men decapitated in Mexico

Twelve decapitated bodies have been found in Southern Mexico, in a grisly day of violence that has shattered the relative calm of the Yucatan peninsula, a tourist hot-spot.

7:16AM BST 30 Aug 2008

Eleven headless bodies bearing signs of torture were dumped in a field on the outskirts of the city of Merida. A 12th body was found about 50 miles away.

Police say all 12 men were decapitated alive, although the heads of the victims have not yet been found.

The still unidentified men were found naked, bound and according to Reuters, branded with the letter Z, suggesting the notorious Zeta hit squad may have been behind the killings.

The Zetas are one of Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking gangs and the highest-profile rivals to Joaquin Guzman, a powerful drug lord who escaped from a high-security jail in a laundry van in 2001.

Indeed, the brutal style of execution bears all the trademark signs of Mexico's escalating drug war. Rival cartels have fought each other for control of trafficking routes, local production and growing domestic markets for the past 4 years.

In 2006, President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide battle to take back territory controlled by some of the world's most powerful drug gangs.

The cartels have responded with unprecedented violence, especially along the US-Mexico border.

Mexicans will take to the streets on Saturday in nationwide protests at the escalating violence, which has seen decapitated bodies littering southern and northern Mexico.

More than 2,700 people have been killed in Mexico so far this year while kidnapping rates have soared past those of Colombia and Iraq.